Life + Style: “Write it down, Master, it would be an honor!”

That it did not occur to them what was happening?

Such and similar comments were made by New York Times During an article published in the fall of 2017, in which members who had previously jumped from an organization called Nxivm (pronounced nixium) spoke about how they came into contact with the sect at the time and how the community disguised as a circle of self-knowledge them He shattered.

HBO’s new document series, The Inauguration oath try to find answers to the previous question.

Nxivm was a New York company founded in the late 1990s that offered self-help workshops and shared lifestyle advice, with conservative estimates that more than 15,000 people attended the courses they offered. The company operated on a pyramid scheme, meaning that members had to bring in additional members to move up the rankings.

Founder Keith Raniere and his partner, Nancy Salzman, jointly developed the curriculum for the very expensive courses, which focused on self-confidence, overcoming emotional barriers, and of course exploring and overcoming the deepest fears. , the weakest points of the personality of the students.

The series begins slowly but precisely, it shows the philosophy of the organization, as well as the fact that while most completed the course with satisfaction, even those who dropped out said that some methods and training really worked, and then continued, many remained in the Nxivm circles. Discarding their careers, they became educators, leaders within the community. Over the years the organization split into different parts, for example a men’s group called the Protectors Society and a women’s group called Jness were formed, with the latter also having the opportunity to “step forward. “.

“It is an honorit iswould be “

They planted very slowly in the limbs to see their own development and major jOh To achieve this they had to renounce pride and totally reduce the ego, and then the chosen ones got into an exclusive group called DOS, where they had to commit to Keith Raniere and, above all, follow his will.

The women were forced into a master-slave relationship and, as part of the initiation ceremony that preceded it, they baked the man’s monogram on the surface of the skin below their hips. So the women had to say:

look at me, Master, it would be an honor.

The women in DOS had to do reserve exercises when their teacher wrote to them, they had to answer in a minute: RM, that is, ready, teacher, and before meals they had to calculate how many calories they would consume and ask permission, because A Raniere he loved having sex with thin women.

When women entered DOS, they were not only allowed to live with women from other sects, but they also had to share personal information and nude photos of them, so when they wanted to leave the sect or whisper to someone, they were blackmailed with them. . DOS boss and chief recruiter is Smallvillewas a well-known actress, Allison Mack.

Making the world a better place?

The documentary series, directed by Oscar nominee and Emmy winner Jehane Noujaim and Karim Amer, shows step-by-step nine-hour episodes that the cult has sniffed out for members.

In the series, we first meet Mark Vicente, a very successful documentary filmmaker in the early 2000s: after the We know the miracle of the worldOhl? , was approached by the Nxivm leadership to draw the man’s attention to their unique methodology to help them achieve even greater success. Vicente saw then from the organization what we, the viewers, were from the initial images of the series: people running by the lake, playing volleyball, always happy, always hugging, fighting for a better and freer world, a community to the that it is a joy to belong.

The director suspected that everyone was pushing so hard for each other, but he soon fell in love with the organization and then became an active member, videotaping the most important events himself and now made the recordings available to the series. The mystery surrounding Keith Raniere, the founder, played a key role in Nxivm winning over the people: the candidates knew all that he was “a great friend of humans”, “has a very high IQ” and, With the help of science, he “wants to be better.” to make the world ”.

Vicente’s photographs almost paint the image of a prophet on him: Raniere is a charismatic and calm man with the correct answer always in his pocket. He is a great pianist, he judges and, frighteningly, kisses everyone with his mouth in greeting. Believers subtly listen to all of his words, but it’s even more interesting when Raniere himself listens: it’s amazing how much he listened to everyone around him, and that gave him a great foundation to gain everyone’s trust in a short time. Stubborn, often lonely people opened up to him at the slightest sign of interest, somehow everyone wanted to get close to him and he had sex with multiple members at once. Raniere is without a doubt a master of manipulation, a monster in his prime.

To himit isPit isst backwards

Noujaim and Amer vividly show that although Nxivm did not operate on a religious basis, his cleverly crafted belief system functioned in the same way as that of other sects: in isolation, bringing the psyche to its atoms, expecting a high level of commitment from members and claiming to be together. the answers to life’s great questions.

From the outside, of course, anyone would say that a sane person avoids such groups from afar, and the actors keep wondering how they got here, but the Inauguration oath denies that those who join the sect are simple, gullible, controllable morons. He means, and also insists throughout his statement, that it is tremendously easy to put people on their toes in one of their most vulnerable periods: if someone does not trust themselves, they see their life as useless, but they yearn terribly belong somewhere, you can stay there without problems. common sense. Furthermore, Nxivm did not want to recruit losers, but specifically attractive and mostly successful people, since sex and power were motivations only in the inner core, and at the lower levels they were forced to squeeze as much money as possible out of the appliers.

The series is built around four protagonists, Mark Vicente also organized the actress Sarah Edmonson, in search of fame but somewhat lost, and his later wife, Bonnie Piesse. The moment Piesse started the avalanche, she noticed that some of the women from Nxivm had lost horrible weight, and after finding more and more suspicious things, she resigned. Vicente eventually followed his wife, but even before the jump, they set out to record everything, along with Sarah Edmondson. All the phone calls, emails and photos were saved, despite the fact that, and precisely because they knew that escape would not be easy, the creators packed these materials side by side with extremely meticulous work, like pieces of puzzles. An important role is also played by the woman who came out back in 2009: not only was she intimidated, but she was also completely ruined with the money of the billionaire girls Bronfman and a team of lawyers.

The fourth protagonist is DynastyOhl Known as Catherine Oxenberg – She also completed the course and even recruited her daughter, India, who was actively a slave to Raniere at the time of the series and hadn’t spoken to her mother for some time. With the appearance of the Oxenbergs, the Inauguration oath from a chilling documentary to a horrible crime. Catherine learns that her daughter has lost so much weight for 26 years that she has not menstruated for a year, so with the help of Vicente and the New York Times, she does everything possible to save her from the clutches of the Raniere in time.

The main characters look to the former members in front of the viewer’s eyes to address the press together and then collect evidence so that the authorities can also address their case. It is interesting by the way that a lot was written about Nxivm even before 2017, but only the New York TimesInside, right in the middle of the metoo-scandal, he was able to get through the wall. Keith Raniere was finally arrested in 2018 by the FBI in Mexico. He was convicted of blackmail, conspiracy, wiretapping, sex trafficking last year, and Allison Mack also pleaded guilty in court.

A Inauguration oath Its greatest virtue is that its creators listened very patiently to the stories of the protagonists and, with the help of powerful interviews and archive material from Vicente, they produced an authentic, immersive and extremely sensitive series that always asks good questions. And the responses given at a cautious pace struck not only the former members of the sect but also the viewer in the face.

The series is available with Hungarian subtitles on HBO GO and HBO.